Tag: Cain Velasquez

This Saturday night, you can join us for all the action during our UFC 160 liveblog, but today you can prep for the pay-per-view card with these “Countdown to UFC 160” documentary hype videos, broken up into three segments for the ADD-afflicted among you.

With one of the strongests undercards (on paper) in what feels like an eternity, UFC 160 is primed to become, at the very least, a night chock full of wild finishes and entertaining scraps that will leave *no fan* unsatisfied. I really hope I’m not overselling it. Anyway, join us now as we try to underline the right favorites and highlight some possible underdogs in the hopes of finding that ever-elusive payout for UFC 160. The gambling lines, as always, come courtesy of BestFightOdds.

Having only lost twice, to Urijah Faber and injuryweight world champion Dominick Cruz, Bowles comes in as a healthy -280 favorite (and rightfully so) against the woefully inconsistent George Roop. Roop is coming off a less than convincing win over Reuben Duran in his return to bantamweight, whereas his opponent is looking to get back on the short list of top contenders in the division. Bowles should be able to close the distance on Roop and get this fight to the mat, where we may see a submission victory for the former WEC champion. Bowles makes the parlay at -140 and the prop bet that he is able to end things before the final bell.

Although details are sketchy at best right now, it appears that UFC heavyweight contender/future champion Mark Hunt has been arrested in his native New Zealand and has consequently been denied the Visa that would allow him to fly to Las Vegas, kick Junior Dos Santos’ ass on May 25th, and secure the next shot at Cain Velasquez. The information was passed along by none other than Hunt himself via his Twitter account. Caution: the following contains several naughty words and a noticeable absence of the letter “c.”

Well thanks to a idiot friend of mine I did get arrested. Denied again at airport I’m never helping anymore dikhead mates. This is wat happens wen u have friends that are dikheads the last fukn time I help these mother fkn trouble makers.

Let me make one thing clear from the very beginning: I’m not trying to say that it wasn’t newsworthy — even inspirational — when Fallon Foxfirst came out as a transgender MMA fighter. Transgender individuals are extremely prone to harassment, discrimination, violence and bigoted stereotyping — all tragically evident by looking at the Facebook posts and tweets that have been directed at Fox since she came out roughly one month ago. I am in full support of her rights to be socially acknowledged and treated as any other woman would be treated outside of the cage.

Despite the punishment, UFC fighters are still willing to discuss Fallon Fox — who, let’s remember, doesn’t even fight in the UFC — with reporters. Yesterday, The New York Post published an interview with one of the most talented, popular, and accomplished female fighters of all time, Ronda Rousey. A total of zero questions had anything to do with Rousey’s own future in the sport, instead focusing on how she feels about potentially fighting Fallon Fox:

“She can try hormones, chop her pecker off, but it’s still the same bone structure a man has,” Rousey told The Post. “It’s an advantage. I don’t think it’s fair.”

With all of the controversy surrounding the career of transgender MMA fighter Fallon Fox, it should come as little surprise that reporters have been asking athletes — regardless of their sexes — for their take on whether or not she should be allowed to fight. The latest fighter to voice his opinion on the controversial competitor is none other than UFC Heavyweight champion Cain Velasquez, who isn’t as open to the idea of allowing Fox to fight against other women as some of us are.

Like many people, Velasquez believes that Fox holds an unfair advantage over her competition, and should only be allowed to fight other transgender athletes. Via MMAFighting:

“I don’t think she should be able to fight women,” Velasquez flatly responded when asked about Fox at a recent media luncheon.

“Having the same bone structure and everything else as a man, I think definitely does give her an advantage.”

(Demetrious Johnson had never seen a giraffe in person before this photo was taken. He still hasn’t, but don’t tell him that.)

Despite being a relatively humble guy by fighter’s standards, Stefan Struve isn’t afraid to make a bold statement every now and again. Or in today’s case, a couple obvious ones. First, Struve spoke to UFC.com about his upcoming UFC on FUEL 8 tilt with PRIDE legend Mark Hunt (check out an awesome promo for the event here). After making such straightforward statements as “[Hunt] will not try and take me down” and “I’m fine when I keep my distance,” Struve ended the interview by declaring that “I’m not a boy among men anymore, you know? Now I’m a 265-pound, seven-foot monster.” Which is fine, until you see how he made that statement.

Unfortunately, there aren’t many better options in the heavyweight division right now. Velasquez won’t fight his teammate Daniel Cormier, and the rest of the UFC’s heavyweight contenders either have their next fight booked already, or lack the kind of hype that Bigfoot currently carries after his comeback win over The Reem. And what are you going to do, have your champion sit out until a totally legitimate contender emerges? Come on. That’s not how you run a business.

So will Velasquez smash Antonio Silva for the second time, or should we start preparing for “The Bigfoot Era”? (Step one: Stock up on canned goods. Step two: Limber up.) In other UFC 160 heavyweight booking news…

When Junior Dos Santos attempted to write off his lopsided defeat to Cain Velasquez at UFC 155 as the result of “personal” issues, most of us just assumed that he was having a difficult time facing the fact that he was bested by a man he had previously destroyed. “Excuses are like assholes,” commented at least one of you. “JDS was way to overconfident and paid for it,” said a few others.

However, if the rumors currently circulating the MMA blogosphere have any truth to them, it was actually Armfarmer who provided the most astute observation of JDS when he declared that “Maybe he finally realized that he’s married to a 2 when he could be pulling 10′s left and right. That realization would sure cause me some distracting personal problems..” A bit harsh? Surely, but according to Tatame’s Guilherme Cruz, Dos Santos was in fact in the process of separating from his wife of ten years in the lead-up to UFC 155:

If you were wondering what JDS meant when said he has personal issues prior to Cain’s rematch, he ended his 10-year marriage w/ Vilsana.

(As you can tell by the above photo, Junior was feeling a little self-conscious about his looks that night as well.)

Perhaps it’s because he’s one of the nicest guys in the sport, but we’d like to think that most MMA fans hold Junior Dos Santos to a higher standard than that of most fighters. We sure as hell do. Regardless of who you were rooting for at UFC 155, we defy you to declare that you didn’t weep for the battered former champ as he asked Joe Rogan “Why they do that?” while being met with a chorus of undeserved boos in his post-fight interview. It was like watching a child’s face sink with the unexpected revelation that that there was no Santa. On Christmas Eve.

So it is with heavy hearts that we must bring you the inevitable next chapter in the book of any fallen fighter: The Excuses. To be fair, the problems Junior cited in a recent interview with Brazil’s Esporte were not the typical kind of nonsense you’d hear from 90% of MMA fighters attempting to diagnose a loss, but the fact that we hold Junior in such high regard makes his recent allegations all the more disappointing:

Really was my head. I had some personal things going on, a bit of my attention was lacking because of it. And another thing. Soon after the fight I went to the hospital and had a scan, which showed my creatine was too high. The normal level is up to 300, mine was in 1400. I also had trouble in the urine and kidneys.

The explanation of the doctors is that I pushed over the line, I over trained, and problems could have happened even before the fight… I was so good that I ended up crossing the line. That was the explanation of doctors. Mine is that I was not good with my head, was having personal problems and did not go well mentally in the fight.

As a fantastic wrestler with dynamite punching power, Cormier would present Jon Jones with the same challenges that a guy like Dan Henderson would. But he also shares Hendo’s biggest disadvantage — his physical dimensions. Both Cormier and Henderson stand 5’11″, with 71″ reaches, and could be picked apart by the 6’4″ Jones and his inhuman 84.5″ wingspan.